EUROPEAN AIRPORTSREPORT


million tonnes by the year 2020. The additional infrastructure requires construction in stages across 27 hectares. The expansion includes cargo halls with a total space of around 100,000 square metres, supplemented by office buildings and parking facilities. With the downturn in the world economy due to the financial


crisis, three million tonnes by 2020 may seem like an unobtain- able target, especially when this year’s total tonnage is going to be about two million, and Frankfurt (see picture right) has had the added difficulty in recent years of having a night time flight ban imposed on it. So, its growth is slow, but not unlike the rest of Western Europe. The airport’s combined airfreight and airmail throughput reached 1.9 million tonnes for January to November 2014, a 2.1 per cent increase on 2013. In November, the airport achieved 199,242 tonnes, a 2.8 per cent increase on the same


month in 2013. Frankfurt also defines its cargo differently to the Airports Council International (ACI). The non-ACI figures add an additional 3,000 tonnes or so for its November volume. Expansion for other German airports can be from the tenants and in the case of Cologne-Bonn Airport, the integrator UPS announced in March that its $200 million facility at the gateway was operational. The facility took two years to construct and is one of UPS’ largest facility investments in the company’s history, according to it. “With this upgrade, we now have the equivalent of 15 football fields of sorting space for a growing export econ- omy on the move,” UPS Europe president, Cindy Miller, said in a March UPS statement. The operating area measures more than 105,000 square metres and the conveyor system covers a dis- tance of about 40 kilometres, with a package taking an average of 15 minutes to move through the hub from unload to load point. The facility includes an extension that is partially dedicated to processing larger express freight shipments.


Strategic tenants


“The Cologne-Bonn hub is our flagship facility in Europe and continues to serve us and the needs of our customers well,” Miller added. “Our strategic investment in Germany, one of the world’s top exporters, underscores our commitment to the European economy. This is part of a long-term strategy to help our custom- ers successfully compete.” Beyond UPS’ facility, the air cargo handled at the airport, in


total in 2013, was around 740,000 tonnes; and that was about two per cent less than 2012. The reason the airport gives for the shrinkage is, “weaker demand was the sluggish economy in Europe, which was felt by the express operators as well.” Of the three German airports that sit in the top 30 of world


cargo gateways, according to ACI, Leipzig-Halle Airport joins Cologne and Frankfurt in that nation’s airfreight gateway trium- virate. In 2013, Leipzig-Halle handled more than 887,000 tonnes. In the third quarter of this year, its freight volumes rose by 1.4 per cent to 667,181 tonnes. According to the airport, this means that freight volumes have


grown for the tenth year in succession. The airport points to the integrator DHL and its European hub, which has been at Leipzig- Halle since 2008 and is expanding its capacity, as one reason for the increase. Another the airport points to is new scheduled service to Moscow operated by AirBridgeCargo Airlines. They started mid-year and Leipzig-Halle views that airline’s many charter flights to Asia and other destinations as contributing to this ongoing growth process. With volumes far in excess of Leipzig-Halle or Cologne-Bonn,


Amsterdam Airport Schiphol reported a cargo volume increase of 9.1 per cent in its 2014 interim report, published in August. The cargo volumes had increased to 802,000 tonnes for the first half of 2014. In 2013, the first half of the year had seen 735,000 tonnes handled. For that entire year, the airport reported han- dling about 1.5 million tonnes. If the airport’s volumes for the second half are as great, then it is on course to exceed last year’s tonnage. At the time of the interim report, Schiphol Group pres-


ident and chief executive officer, Jos Nijhuis, said: “We are once again experiencing positive growth in terms of...cargo. This trend seems set to continue. To further consolidate the international competitiveness of the Mainport, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is investing around 1.5 million euro each day in the quality of its services and facilities. “The first projects under the Master Plan have become oper- ational. Work on implementing central security is on schedule. Schiphol’s healthy growth, cost containment and low interest rates have allowed us to propose a reduction in airport charges as of 1 April 2015. We expect this reduction to exceed minus


five per cent.” When data from the likes of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and ACI show Europe towards the


bottom of regional rankings for airfreight growth and load factor loadings and freight tonne kilometres the continent can seem to be the schlerotic part of the world economy. However, a snapshot of the larger cargo gateways across the region’s many countries, almost 40, displays a different picture of investment, political action, specialisation, and planning for a healthier level of world trade, whether that is 2020 or earlier. When the demand does return for the high value products beloved of airfreight, Europe can be at the heart of world trade flows.


ACW 15 DECEMBER 2014


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